Tony Greenway visits the Yorkshire Museum, in the city of York, for a glimpse of some recently unearthed ancient travel books . . .

Curator Andrew Morrison with one of the books

So there you are, busy re-cataloguing a dusty old library. You open some neglected boxes . . . and you find one of the most important and extravagantly detailed travel books ever written.

That’s what happened last November to some volunteers from the Yorkshire Philosophical Society. They were working in the library at the Yorkshire Museum, in Museum Gardens, York city centre, when they uncovered some extremely rare books by 19th century explorer, adventurer and artist, David Roberts.

Okay, so Roberts isn’t exactly a household name and these volumes share the less-than-snappy title of The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia; but their importance can’t be denied because copies have been owned by, among others, Queen Victoria, the King of Bavaria, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Tsar of Russia. Each remarkable page features hand-coloured lithographs of locations across the Middle East which Roberts personally went to explore and sketch between 1838-39.

“This is one of the best science and archaeology libraries in the country,” says the museum’s curator of archaeology, Andrew Morrison. “There are 42,000 volumes here.” Even so, no-one knew the much-desired Roberts volumes were among them.

The Yorkshire Philosophical Society established the museum in 1830, but its library gradually fell out of use. By the time Andrew arrived five years ago, he was barely able to open the door.

“You couldn’t get in,” he says. “There were boxes piled high everywhere, you couldn’t see anything and you certainly couldn’t use it in any meaningful way.”

The library (which has never been open to the public) is undergoing a revamp: Antique journals and smaller books from all over the world are being unpacked and added to the main collection.

“We have some wonderful original first editions here,” says Andrew. “In a lot of cases, what we own is unique.”

But here’s the thing. Roberts’ books (there are three volumes) are HUGE and they weigh a ton. I try to pick one up and nearly put my back out. Which begs the obvious question: “How can you NOT know you’ve got them in your library?”

“Ah,” says Andrew. “Well, they were packed away in some large boxes which we got to last of all. We knew what they were immediately because Roberts’ Holy Land is such a famous set of books: Today, if you go to Jordan or wherever, you can buy postcards and reproductions of the images in these very volumes.

“What we DIDN’T know at the time is that the books were first editions, which is the really exciting thing. There are others that were mass-produced and printed in sepia; but only 400 hand-coloured sets, personally supervised by Roberts himself, were ever produced . . . and this is one of them.”

They are beautiful things to see up close, and the detail in each drawing is phenomenal. The colours are stunning and the level of artistic skill needed to produce them is breath-taking.

So what sort of person was David Roberts? Well, says Andrew, he was born in Edinburgh in 1796 and was already well-respected as an artist. When he got back from his travels across the Middle East, however, his reputation soared. The books, published in the 1840s, were a huge success and he was feted. He died in 1864.

“Roberts was the first person to head out to that part of the world who wasn’t part of the military or political service,” explains Andrew. “He went for topographical reasons. He said he wanted to record the sights and the people, and he started the interest in the archaeology of the Holy Land. People who later saw his pictures were amazed by them.”

Roberts financed the trip himself, selling everything he had, and spent a year in the region visiting the most famous Christian sites such as the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth and the ancient city of Jerusalem. Think about that for a second. A sight-seeing trip across the Middle East would be difficult and problematic enough to undertake today; but doing it 170 years ago would have been a Herculean task.

How do you get from one site to another, for example? Coach? No, no good. They hadn’t been invented yet. And what about dealing with the heat? And the fact that, wherever you go, your paints and easel have to travel with you? Plus, whatever you’ve already painted has to come on the rest of your journey – and be guarded with your life.

“Roberts got off the boat, got a camel, got a guide and he was off,” says Andrew. “He was the first photojournalist in a way because his paintings depict real people in real situations and his colours – look at the peachy tone of that building – are dead right. He was a skilled draftsman and artist . . . but he wasn’t Ralph Fiennes. He was a man from Edinburgh who had never been to the region before.”

Roberts made 270 finished images altogether, sketching and painting them in-situ and then overseeing the work of professional hand-colourists back in England.

We now come to the inevitable Antiques Roadshow question: How much would these books cost?

“Difficult to say,” says Andrew. “There are so few on the market the answer is obviously: ‘A lot.’ It depends on the quality, but on the American market they can fetch £300,000-£400,000.

“We’re not interested in the value of them, however. For us it’s the fact that they are first editions and they’re a wonderful thing to have as a resource.”

Andrew hopes to have the books on display soon. “We aim to close the museum for a refurbishment in late 2009,” says Andrew. “The library will be open to the public for the first time ever in 2010, and will be a usable resource. And then people will be able to see things like this.”

But what about the artefacts that ARE currently on general display? The museum’s archaeology collection features prehistoric finds up until the 20th century and is one of the most comprehensive in a regional British museum outside London; and its biology collection contains over 200,000 specimens. The museum also boasts two great auks, now an extinct species, and The York Helmet, made of iron and copper alloy and dating back to the second half of the 8th century.

Things will change, however, and for the better because the refurb will cost £2 million and totally transform the interior of the museum.

“The Philosophical Society amassed the finest collections of archaeology, geology and biology in England,” says Andrew. “We want to get back to their idea of the museum being a place of science, antiquity, education . . . and excitement.”

And what about some more rare finds? Could a volunteer open another box and find another long-lost artefact or historical document, perhaps?

“Never say never,” says Andrew. “There’s always a chance!”

The Yorkshire Museum is home to some of Britain's finest archaeological treasures and specialises in geology and biology. Many “finds” were discovered in the region and reflect York’s changing identity under different invaders as Eboracum (Roman York), Eoforwic (Anglo Saxon York) and Jorvik (Viking York). Visitors can travel through these different periods, and see items from ordinary people’s everyday lives as well as treasures owned by the very rich.

The museum is open daily from 10am until 5pm, except 25th and 26th December and 1st January. Admission is: Adult, £5; child (with one paying adult), free; under fives, free; concessions, £4.

Tickets are valid for a whole year so you can revisit as many times as you like (please note the museum will be closed for refurbishment from 2nd November, 2009 to 1st August, 2010).